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Gary350
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Location: TN. 50 years of gardening experience.

Mini Soft drink bottle green house for sprouting seeds.

I came up with this idea after having a lot of trouble getting my okra seeds to ALL sprout. We had a week of 92 degree weather then it is 70 during the day and 50 at night for a week. Seeds do not like the 50 degrees nights the ground is cold so they don't sprout. I don't like rows with bare spots.

I cut 3 liter soft drink bottles in half they make nice little green houses to warm up the soil during the day so seeds will sprout. Bottles cut in half easy with a soldering gun.

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IndyGerdener
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Location: Greenwood, Indiana

I like the idea

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Gary350
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Joined: Mon Mar 23, 2009 1:59 pm
Location: TN. 50 years of gardening experience.

Better photos. Can not edit and add to the first thread. :cry:

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Watchrebel
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Joined: Sun Apr 21, 2013 12:06 am
Location: Ocean Springs, MS

That is a great idea. Should work with starting seeds indoors (living space) as well right? For instance, if you have a small (ish) pot for seeds you could cut the top half off and slide the remaining half over your pot. I like it & I'm gonna give it a go. :()

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applestar
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Location: Zone 6, NJ (3/M)4/E ~ 10/M(11/B)

I've used cut off 2L soda bottle top cloche with and without caps for individual plantings of squash, sunflower, and even corn (bulb planter makes perfectly fitted hole to slide the cloche in.) but had not considered mini single row greenhouses like this. Great idea. :D (2L bottles fit perfectly just inside rims of 4"round pots and qt size deli/yogurt containers, BTW)

I notice you are mounding soil alongside to hold them, but high wind situations can still blow them away though. Mine was scattered everywhere after a storm even though they had been fitted in the holes at least 1" deep. :roll:

If you are using heat like soldering gun to cut them then you could also make small holes and hold them down with earth staples. I thought about doing that then but I don't like the smell of melting plastic, and it seemed too tedious to punch holes (and they were almost not needed anymore at that point anyway).

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tomf
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Location: Oregon

Good idea.

Northernfox
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Location: Fort Saskatchewan Alberta

I might have to steel the idea :) I have my melons to start soon :)

kittykat_ford
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Joined: Thu Apr 25, 2013 8:37 am

This is such a great idea! I wonder if it would help deter pesky dogs and squirrels as well!

Thanks for sharing!

Kat

erins327
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Joined: Mon Apr 30, 2012 10:21 am
Location: Houston, TX

This idea is a better idea of what I've been doing.

Same thing happened here in Texas for us. We had consistent high 80's low 60's and I planted my okra. Then we got some cool fronts that dropped down to the mid 40's at night. I took clear shot glass size solo cups and just capped each. We even had one day where the high was 60 or so, so I just left the clear cups on the seedlings.

Seemed to work just fine? I guess time will tell if they were damaged any.



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